In a secret chamber somewhere, the producers of MJ the Musical may be keeping a portrait of the King of Pop that has acquired all his scars, physical and psychological.
Berry Gordy, who founded the Motown label in Detroit in 1959, borrowed his star-maker machinery from the car assembly line. When he worked at the Lincoln-Mercury plant he was inspired by how a bare metal frame would emerge as brand new car. “What a great idea! Maybe I could do the same thing with my music. Create a place where a kid off the street could walk in one door, an unknown, go through a process, and come out another door, a star.”
When I put together my book Rock Shrines, about places music fans go to pay tribute to their dead heroes, I was particularly struck by the story of Ben Cauley. He was trumpet player in Otis Redding's band, The Bar Kays, and the only person to be pulled alive from the freezing waters of Lake Monona, Wisconsin, after the light aircraft crash that killed Redding and the rest of the band in December 1967.
Of course, Hanson are a joke. Literally. On the internet you’ll find them as a subsection of "blonde jokes". And looking back on 12-year-old Zac’s ridiculous hair on “MMMBop”, it’s easy to see why. But they are no longer blond, nor are they kids anymore. In fact, between them, they’ve got eight kids of their own. And so the question is, is now the time to take the clean-cut brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma seriously?
At first sight, it seems extraordinary that there has never been a serious biography dedicated to the Supremes before now. They achieved more than enough to deserve a shelf-ful. In their heyday from 1964 to 1969 America loved them to distraction: only Elvis and the Beatles bettered the 12 number ones the Supremes racked up on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.